If an adult had the worldview of the average child I think he or she would be considered a sociopath, or at least a few crayons short of a Crayola 24-pack. When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend named Sister Sally. I don't remember a damn thing about her but apparently my parents remember every little detail of our imaginary friendship. Every day I would tell them something new and crazy about Sister Sally--that she had grown new heads or had laser vision or that she had told me to kill the president to please Nerull, god of the underworld. I'm sure they thought it was all cute and normal but had they been responsible parents they would have given me an exorcism just to be safe. I think Sister Sally eventually moved to Milwaukee. Which I'm pretty sure is code for the Infinite Layers of the Abyss.
Anyway, I was mulling it over today, and I compiled a list of really fucked-up things that I thought/did as a child. Bear in mind that I was literally afraid of absolutely everything as a kid (Cody always makes fun of me for having never seen Neverending Story as a kid because I was too terrified of the dragon on the box) so most of this stuff is a list of totally irrational things that I was terrified of.
1. I thought that teenage pregnancy was awesome.
Me and my childhood bestie used to play pretend a lot, and one of our favorite pretend scenarios was "teenagers", in which we pretended to be, you guessed it, teenagers. Because being a teenager was like being a super hero to us. But wait, there's more! We liked to be teenagers who had had kids out of wedlock with our pretend boyfriends (who, presumably, paid pretend child support). Our logic? Our pretend selves had kids early because we didn't want to be old when we got to be grandparents. True story.
2. I convinced all of the kids on my block that the Boogeyman lived in my basement.
Being children themselves, they of course believed me. But then one of the kids on my street had to ruin everything and tell me to prove it. Left with no options and having by now even convinced myself that the Boogeyman resided in my basement, I informed everyone that the Boogeyman was a shapeshifter who took the form of my cat, Tipsy. I don't remember if they believed me or not but I don't think anyone really wanted to play with my cat after that so my mission was probably a success.
3. I thought that my toys would come to life in the middle of the night and murder me in my sleep if I didn't treat them well enough.
Most kids probably thought Toy Story was a fun, enjoyable movie about the strong bond of friendship. But I saw it for what it really was: a warning. Instead of thinking that it was just a cartoon and not real, I became convinced that toys really did come to life when you weren't looking...and I assumed that if they had the power to move and speak, they had the power to kill. I took really good care of my toys after that.
4. I thought that, when my ears were ringing, it was aliens trying to communicate with me.
Your guess is as good as mine as to where this idea came from, but if there was any reason to be terrified of anything, it was good enough for me.
5. I refused to sleep under anything thinner than a comforter, even in the sweltering Illinois summer.
The idea here was that thick blankets kept the monsters that lurked in the dark corners of my room from getting me. But thin blankets were too weak.
6. I thought that the term "balls" referred to boobs. Therefore, girls had balls and boys didn't.
I didn't know what testicles were till embarrassingly late into my development, mostly because I went to a Lutheran school until eighth grade and our sex ed class consisted of "The Bible says don't have sex. The end."
7. I thought that I was capable of murdering my whole family.
I had this neurotic fear that if I didn't act right/didn't care about my family enough/played with dangerous objects that something terrible would happen and all of them would die and it would be my fault. This is the sort of mental disorder most people would seek professional help for but it just seemed a totally legit fear for me as a kid.
8. I thought that "prostitute" was a worthwhile profession, and wanted to be one when I grew up.
Seeing as I was a little kid and didn't know what sex was, I thought that a prostitute was just someone guys paid to go on a date with and pay attention to them. That seemed really awesome to me, because even when I was little having a job where people threw money at me just for giving them the pleasure of my company seemed like pretty much the raddest thing ever. My work ethic was terrible as a child. Some things never change.
No comments:
Post a Comment